


Change

by marzipan (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Everyone lies, F/F, Gen, M/M, Werewolf AU, bad ending????, maybe there will be a sequel where the plot diverges a la choose-your-own-adventure, the au bingo compels me to write a werewolf au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-09-21 09:24:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17041121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/marzipan
Summary: Mycroft Holmes comes home to a werewolf who ruins his dinner plans, and then his brother's life.





	1. Chapter 1

Mycroft presses his back against the wall, breath inaudible, and silently calls for backup. His phone lights up with a text reply from his assistant almost immediately.

Cameras do show a break-in, but it looks like some sort of animal.

Mycroft frowns.

Political affiliations unlikely.

He grips the umbrella, ready to defend himself if necessary, and ventures into the living room. 

A low growl rumbles across the room, and Mycroft pauses mid-step. His eyes, adjusted to the darkness now, can make out the outline of some furry creature. Beyond that, the glass door leading to the back yard is completely shattered. 

With luck, the animal would leave of its own accord. It seems strange it would barge into a private home for no reason - possibly it is injured. Mycroft contemplates barricading himself in his room while he calls animal control. Then he hears a whine.

The wolf pads up to him - and he is pretty certain it’s a wolf now - puts a paw on his shoe - then yawns widely, showing all of its teeth.

Mycroft blinks.

It blinks back.

Then it stalks past him, and up the stairs.

Mycroft gawps at it from the foyer for a moment - is it headed to the bedroom? - then picks up the phone again.

“Anthea, send animal control, or some exterminator capable of dealing with a wolf, to my home immedia-”

The creature moves at such speed, jumping from the railings, that Mycroft can barely register what happens as a blur knocks the phone out of his hand. He turns to see the wolf chomping at the phone, pausing momentarily only to shoot a very disappointed (disappointed??) look at Mycroft - before returning to his task.

Then it huffs at him, and ventures up the stairs again, smacking Mycroft heavily on the leg with his tail.

.

It’s practically morning by the time animal control arrives and Mycroft, who has been hiding out in his study, shows them upstairs. 

The door is locked.

The man turns to Mycroft as a courtesy, with no real remorse.

“We’re going to have to break the lock,” he says.

Mycroft sighs pitifully. “I suppose you must.”

He and his assistant are banging away at the poor, unfortunate, varnished oak panel when, suddenly, they hear a click.

Everyone rears up as the door opens - animal control readying a shock leash and net - and then a tuft of messy black hair pokes out.

Jim Moriarty surveys the trio with bleary eyes and horribly sleep-mussed hair.

“Huh,” he says through a yawn, eyes landing on the shock leash, before turning to Mycroft. “Bit kinky. Didn’t think you’d be into-” he gestures vaguely ”-blue collar costumes and roleplay.” 

The animal control people turn to Mycroft with very disappointed faces.


	2. Chapter 2

Jim flops down into a chair at the kitchen table and Mycroft thinks it very apt to say he wolfs down the entire takeaway carton of breakfast foods. Anthea, who has been so very kind to arrive with provisions, is sitting in the living room, texting away, with a coffee and french toast.

 

Mycroft looks down at his little bowl of porridge with some regret.

 

“Look, I lost upwards of 40 million quid playing your little game with your brother,” Jim says through a mouthful of bacon. “And I’m not complaining.”

 

“I beg to differ.”

 

“I’m not! I rather even enjoyed it. But the point is, you owe me a favor, you know that.” He pauses to gulp down half the glass of orange juice.

 

“Yes, consider the bill for two doors and a set of sheets struck from your record,” Mycroft says. His diet is going  _ swimmingly.  _

 

Jim snorts.

 

“No, don’t play dumb. You’re pretty enough, but it still doesn’t suit you.” He stops to consider it, then points a fork in Mycroft’s face. “Like pod people.”

 

“Then, please, enlighten me.”

 

Jim wipes his mouth with a napkin and then balls it up, squeezing it like a form of stress relief.

 

“As you might have noticed, being the observant man you are, I’ve a bit of a hairy problem.”

 

Mycroft wills himself not to smile, not to give Moriarty the pleasure of a properly executed pun. Because it’s not. It’s low-hanging fruit, and he knows it. 

 

Jim scratches his neck.

 

Ah.

 

“I assume this is a new problem, then?”

 

Jim just stares.

 

“Really? You think I just turn into Fluffy once a month and you’ve just never noticed? Huh. Point for me then, I guess.” He actually seems a bit annoyed. “Well, it’s not something I plan on getting accustomed to, so, the favor. Help me find a way to undo this.”

 

Mycroft’s porridge has congealed into a disgusting, cold block. He pushes it away.

 

“I’m not sure how you think I can help you, Jim.”

 

Jim, to his surprise, grabs the bowl and leans over to swipe the jar of honey from the other side of the table too. He dumps a truly excessive amount on top, then adds some milk and puts it in the microwave.

 

He walks back over to Mycroft to nick the spoon from his hand.

 

“Someone with brains like yours? And the resources of Great Britain at his shadowy disposal? I’m sure you’ll find a way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please tread carefully around any plotholes - I'm making this up as I go


	3. Chapter 3

“Road trip!” Jim jumps into the passenger seat and throws his shades on. Anthea catches her boss’s eye with a heartfelt, sympathetic look, and then promptly turns on her heel to desert him.

 

Mycroft tries not to sigh as he climbs into the driver’s seat.

 

.

 

“You’re awfully calm about all this,” Mycroft says, when they’ve gotten a ways down the road.

 

Jim’s been staring out the window - or snoozing - it’s hard to tell with his shades on.

 

“Sometimes I have the sudden impulse to chase cats,” he says, apropos of nothing. Mycroft glances at him, and Jim shrugs. “Just thought you should know. In case you’re, I dunno, taking stock of side-effects.”

 

“Hm.”

 

“So tell me about this little brother of yours, who you sent running all over London solving crime. He’s really quite clever, this Sherlock.”

 

“Too clever for his own good,” Mycroft laments.

 

Jim glances over to find Mycroft checking his pocket watch. “I won’t lie and say I wasn’t just a bit offended when you called my portfolio a ‘distraction’ with your proposal, but once he got started, he was on fire! I was practically rooting for him by the time he got to the fake Vermeer. He _nearly_ didn’t make it.”

 

“Speaking of…”

 

Mycroft holds out a hand, palm up. Jim glances at it, before looking away. When Mycroft doesn’t move, he places his own hand on top.

 

“Woof.”

 

“The _drive_ , Jim.”

 

Jim sighs, and fishes it out of his pocket to hand it over. He’d palmed it before throwing a copy into the pool.

 

“Hid it in your backyard, you didn’t even notice! Should make this rightfully mine.”

 

“If I find any signs of these on auction, I will have your head.”

 

“Brrr, scary. So tell me all about this little brother of yours. Start from the beginning. Give me the origin story. What was your childhood like? How did the two of you, once so sweet, become arch-nemeses?”

 

Mycroft doesn’t even look bothered.

 

“We had a perfectly normal childhood.”

 

Jim is startled into laughter.

 

“And there’s a lie if I ever heard one.”

 

“I don’t owe you any information, Jim.”

 

“God, you’re going to make this drive _so boring.”_

 

Jim pulls the glove compartment open, and starts rifling through Mycroft’s things.

 

“Please stop that.”

 

He slaps it shut and falls back in his seat with a sigh.

 

Then he peers over at Mycroft.

 

“Do you generally make such shady deals? You’re barely surprised a werewolf broke into your house in the middle of the night.”

 

“Believe me, I was plenty surprised.”

 

Jim snorts. “You’re not acting like it.”

 

“Merely British.”

 

Jim mulls it over.

 

“If he’s so clever, don’t you think he’ll cotton on to the fact that you’re involved at some point?”

 

Mycroft doesn’t react.

 

“You can’t really be banking on the idea that he’ll forgive you just because he had a little fun,” Jim wheedles. “I bet he’s spent his life in your shadow, and this consulting biz is the first real thing he’s had all his own, without big brother’s help. Imagine when he realizes he’s been made to dance by the one person he would most detest to have pulling his strings.”

 

“By then,” Mycroft replies cryptically, “it won’t much matter.”

 

.

 

They arrive at what is clearly a military complex. Jim doesn't say a word about it until they've gotten into an elevator, just the two of them, heading down to the basement levels.

 

“Where are you taking me?”

 

“To a shady government-funded lab where we perform all our unethical human experiments, so that our mad scientists can study you.”

 

“Ha, ha. Should have known you really were some dark overload I shouldn't have gotten involved with,” Jim responds, and his weak quip is telling.

 

“Clearly,” Mycroft says. He slowly raises his hands to remove Jim's shades. His eyes are bloodshot, and barely focused. “Because the first thing you need, Jim, is a doctor. Urgently.”

 


	4. Chapter 4

The “doctor” isn't quite what Jim expected.

 

“Say ‘ahhhhh.’”

 

Jim gives Mycroft a funny look before turning back to the doctor to comply. He’s a bespectacled black man with a clearly American accent and a sort of head-in-the-clouds quality that one might expect in a tenured professor but would not want in one’s GP.

 

Plus, he had introduced himself as: “You can call me Lem.”

 

“Lem…?” Jim turns to Mycroft with a grimace.

 

“Dr. Lem Hewitt. Poached from one of my many other nefarious, top-secret labs.”

 

Lem shrugs, a dark cloud coming over the atmosphere. “I’m in witness protection. They’re looking into my lab partner’s alleged death because his cryogenically frozen body went missing.”

 

“Dr. Hewitt, we think Jim may be hm, a werewolf,” Mycroft interrupts. “Judging by the fact that he broke into my house yesterday. As a wolf.”

 

“Yeah, okay, just let me run some tests,” Lem says without missing a beat. 

 

And for another thing, this part of the lab is literally a basement. In that it  _ looks _ like a basement. A little, dinky storage floor below the proper high-tech looking basement labs, levels -1, -2, and -3. This one, conversely, is lined with linoleum and lit by a fire-hazard tangle of standing lamps. 

 

Jim feels the impulse to back away. Instead, he sinks slowly onto the little round stool he was given, and complies with the tests. He finds he doesn’t have the strength to do much else. 

 

It’s all the standard ones: Blood pressure, pupils, ears, heartbeat, a pinprick of blood, and so on. Then Lem grabs a clipboard.

 

“Great.”

 

“I’m healthy?” Jim asks skeptically.

 

“Oh, no, I’m not sure how you’re still conscious. And you’re so  _ sweaty _ . But now that we’re done with the baseline tests, we can get more invasive.”

 

Jim makes a face.

 

“Now,” Lem says, taking a seat across from him. “Have you ever been bitten?”

 

Jim glances at Mycroft before answering. 

 

“Might’ve.”

 

“I’m sorry?”

 

“I...might have. Might have been bitten. Maybe.”

 

Lem stares, then turns to Mycroft, then back again.

 

“Did you, or did you not? I’m fairly sure this isn’t ambiguous. Either something sunk its teeth into you, or it didn’t.”

 

Jim thinks about this.

 

“If,” he starts slowly. “If I contracted this via bite, as in, a werewolf bit me, turning me, in effect, into a werewolf…”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Couldn’t the werewolf have been in human form as well, when it bit me?”

 

Lem looks at him for a good long moment.

 

“It--perhaps. Maybe. Yes. Why not! We have no proof otherwise? Do we?”

 

“Then yes, yes I was bitten.”

 

“When?” Lem asks with some urgency, “Where? By what?”

 

“Many times. In many places. Over the course of my entire sex life.”

 

They stare.

 

“You don’t  _ know _ who bit you?”

 

Jim’s shoulders climb as he makes his poor excuses. “It’s like an STI! Who knows where  _ anyone _ gets it from?”

 

“They do!”

 

“Weeelll…”

 

Mycroft steps away and buries his face in his hands.

 

“Look, guy, I never actually got your name, but you’re in real trouble here. Like, your body is shutting down on itself, kind of trouble,” Lem says.

 

“This is the first time you’ve turned,” Mycroft says, more a question.

 

“Yes. So, if you’re saying sometime between this and the last full moon, whoever bit me is most likely the one who turned me, and is therefore  _ also _ a werewolf, then, sorry. No one bit me. It just happened!”

 

“Nothing unusual happened this month?”

 

“Well, yes! You hired me to fuck with your brother! Plenty unusual, in my books,” Jim scoffs. Then he deflates. “So I thought you’d know.”

 

Mycroft looks at him with some regret.

 

“Jim-”

 

Alarms start to blare.


	5. Chapter 5

“New policy,” Sherlock says, ushering John along to avoid close contact with the Major. “Can’t remain unmonitored forever. Goodness knows what you’d get up to.”

 

Too late; the corporal they’d earlier bamboozled has now caught on, slamming his hand on the wall alarm. Red lights flash, and sirens blare.

 

Sherlock pulls out his phone, ignores his texts, and puts it back into his pocket.

 

“ID unauthorized, sir!” the Corporal tells the Major.

 

Ah, well.

 

“What?” The Major is livid. He turns to Sherlock, demanding his ID.

 

“Clearly not Mycroft Holmes,” he scoffs.

 

John, wanting to help but far too late, takes out his notebook and pen and starts to scribble.

 

“Computer error, Major. It’ll all have to go in the report,” John tsks, full disappointment mode on.

 

“What the _hell_ is going on?!” the Major shouts.

 

Sherlock is about to call his brother, maybe beg a minute or two to think a way out of the situation, when Dr. Frankland, their client Henry Knight’s contact, pushes his way into their little argument.

 

“It’s all right, Major. I know exactly who these gentlemen are,” he says.

 

The detective and his sidekick are thankful for the reprieve.

  


.

  


Five levels down, Mycroft frowns at his phone as he texts away, his brother unanswering.

 

He feels around his jacket pocket, then drops his hands with a sigh.

 

“ID’s gone,” he says.

 

Jim raises an eyebrow, reclined on a big lab chair now. “You mean you don’t just show your face all the time and get shown in? You, the great Mycroft Holmes, have to adhere to bureaucracy like the rest of us peasants?”

 

“I see you’re feeling better, Jim.”

 

“Oh no, I feel faint - you’ll have to catch me.”

 

“I’ll have to put a standing order out on Sherlock,” Mycroft grumbles, resigned.

 

Jim tries to sit up.

 

“He’s here?” he asks, baffled.

 

The alarms stop. Mycroft frowns.

 

“And he’s found himself an in. I’ll have to fire whomever it is, later.”

 

Lem ambles back to the two of them, stack of binders in hand.

 

“Hey so, werewolf-guy, I’d like to keep you overnight for more tests,” Lem says.

 

Jim flops back in his seat with a pout, throwing his arms open.

 

“Do with me what you will!” he sighs.

 

“Well, even without the tests, it’s already obvious you’re well below healthy-werewolf standards, not to mention healthy human standards, but- and this sounds bad but I think it’s a good thing - but I _think_ the key may be that you’re only half turned,” Lem says, setting his binders neatly in stacks.

 

Jim stares.

 

“What do you mean ‘healthy werewolf standards’?” he asks slowly.

 

“Like. A healthy werewolf,” Lem says, as if it was obvious.

 

“ _How_ do you know what a _healthy werewolf_ looks like?” Jim practically growls.

 

“Oh. Ohhh.” Lem catches on. He glances nervously at Mycroft, and Jim turns to glower at him.

 

“What aren’t you telling me, Holmes?”

 

“Dr. Hewitt, please feel free to proceed with your tests.”

 

“Um. Umm okay.”

 

“Jim,” Mycroft sighs, walking over to put a hand on the arm of his chair. “Dr. Hewitt here has dealt with all manners of strange and seemingly fictitious creatures. Do not be surprised if he can give you the resting heart rate of the Loch Ness monster. However, biological stats do not necessarily accompany an accurate mythology.”

 

Jim narrows his eyes. “You’re lying to me and trying to make me think you don’t know any other werewolves.”

 

“Jim, please just think about how absurd the sentence you uttered sounds,” Mycroft says.

 

“I’m a werewolf!! How much more absurd can this get?!” A moment later he gives Mycroft a plaintive look. “You just don’t want to introduce me to your friends. Is this because I’m a mutt? He said I wasn’t fully turned. How the hell full-on turning into a wolf means I’m not _fully_ turned, I don’t know.”

 

“Oh,” Lem says, pushing up his glasses and turning back to the group. “It’s just a hypothesis, seeing that your body is failing to fight off this, let’s call it a virus.”

 

“Thanks.”

 

“Whereas usually the werewolf cells would essentially take over all of the cells, and _replace_ your immune system as it does. Does that make sense? So instead of overtaking everything, the werewolf cells and your old cells are kind of at a stalemate, displaying outwardly as an immune system failure.”

 

“Uh-huh.”

 

“The other hypothesis is that your cells are incompatible and it’s just not going to take. You’re going to suffer excruciatingly from organ failure, and then die.”

 

Jim’s face is still impassive. Mycroft looks on with some concern.

 

“You’re taking this awfully well.”

 

Jim half-shrugs. “Truth be told, it’s a nice break in the usual mundanity of life.”

 

“Being a criminal kingpin not exciting enough for you?”

 

“Mm. Not nearly enough.”

 

Mycroft wonders whether Jim is capable of experiencing fear. But now’s not the time.

 

.

 

Sherlock looks out into the distance, thinking.

 

“It was immense, had burning red eyes, and it was glowing, John, its whole body was glowing,” Sherlock says. He’s visibly disturbed by the experience, but sets his resolve. “I’ve got a theory but I need to get back into Baskerville to test it.”

 

“How?” John asks. “Can’t pull off the ID trick again.”

 

Sherlock grimaces but pulls out his phone, hits just a button or two before holding it up to his ear.

 

“Ah, hello, brother dear,” he says, sarcasm dripping from his tone. “How are you?”

 

He wheedles his way into gaining limited access for the night - the trade of the offer of doing Mycroft’s legwork for him always goes far. But before he can hang up, his brother interrupts with a question.

 

“Oh, by the way, Sherlock – do you remember Redbeard?”

 

Sherlock’s face goes rigid. It’s a brief moment before he can respond.

 

“I’m not a child anymore, Mycroft,” he says, promptly hanging up.

 

John gives him a funny look at that. “What’s that?”

 

“Just a reminder of some story my brother told me when we were kids - the East Wind, laying waste to all in its path.”

 

“Seeks out the unworthy, and plucks them out of the Earth,” Sherlock says. He sighs. “Generally, that was me. We’d play pirates, I’d be Redbeard, and he’d capsize my boat.”

 

John laughs.

 

.

 

“Redbeard?” Jim asks, once Mycroft’s hung up.

 

“Family dog,” Mycroft says.

 

“Hmm.”

 

.

 

“You’ll give me 24 hours,” Sherlock says with authority. “It’s what I’ve negotiated.”

 

The Major stares him down, clearly unhappy, but aware of the situation.

 

“And not a second more,” he says. “I may have to comply with this order, but I don’t have to like it.”

 

Sherlock rolls his eyes - let them think him a conspiracy theorist, so long as his access comes unimpeded.

 

Then he gets to setting up. After running through all possibilities, logical and illogical alike, he has reason to believe this hallucinogen is airborne, not ingested as he previously believed.

 

Now all he’s got to do is call John…

 

.

 

The lift doors open and John steps in the lab just in time to see the last two scientists leaving.

 

It’s a bit eerie now, compared to when they barged in before, with the dim lights and unearthly quiet.

 

John is to meet Sherlock in the next lab over, and he takes out his working security pass to do so. He swipes it, and - just as Mycroft promised - he gains access.

 

There’s a table, some papers, a glass wall - it’s just a lab.

 

John frowns, poking around at what instruments he can find. There are some pipes along the wall, and one of them seems to be leaking.

 

He pokes at it and - “Ow! Jesus!” it gets in his eye.

 

And it doesn’t stop leaking then, either. The room seems to fill with white fog, slowly at first, then before he realizes, it’s dense enough he can’t see the exit.

 

John stumbles a bit, making for the door, with a hand over his eye.

 

“Fuck,” he curses, low enough that no one’d have heard him anyway.

 

Then, all of a sudden, an alarm begins to blare. Well, he can’t cover both his eye and his ears - the onslaught of noise and pain makes the room _spin_.

 

He feels along the wall until he gets to the door, then swipes the pass: ACCESS DENIED.

 

“What…?” He swipes again. ACCESS DENIED. The alarm seems to get louder. And then the room turns red.

 

“No, come on, come on!”

 

John bangs on the door - nothing. All the scientists have left. He feels along the wall until he gets to the glass window, hoping maybe someone is still on the other side. He pounds the glass.

 

“Hey!”

 

John fumbles for the torch in his pocket, then freezes - he hears a low, low growl.

 

He turns around, slowly. There’s nothing there.

 

John reaches for his phone and dials Sherlock. It rings, then rings some more.

 

“No, you...don’t be ridiculous, pick up.”

 

Of course he doesn’t.

 

The phone falls silent, but the room isn’t. John hears the growl again, and crouches. He peers around the room but the fog obscures any hopes of getting eyes on the creature. He tries to silence even his breathing - then he hears it. Claws on the tile floor. One, two - it’s coming closer.

 

 _Now_ his phone rings.

 

John scrambles to pick up - it’s Sherlock, of course it is.

 

“It’s here - it’s in here with me,” he whispers.

 

“Where are you?” Sherlock asks.

 

“Get me out - Sherlock, you have got to get me out. It’s the big lab, the first lab we saw,” John says. Another growl. He shuts his mouth.

 

Then he sees it, two red dots turn toward him - he thinks it a trick of the light at first; the rolling fog mixed with the spinning red emergency lights. Then the two dots blink.

 

He registers the movement before the sound of the beast’s snarl - it leaps for him.

 

.

 

“John? John?” Sherlock frowns. The line’s gone dead, and not from his end. He’s sitting safely in the control room, watching John panic in the lab on his screen. The symptoms were similar enough but - oh God.

 

.

 

The table _crashes_ into the thing, whatever it is. It’s dog-like enough, as far as John’s concerned, and his body’s gone into fight-or-flight mode.

 

Thanks to the fog, he still hasn’t gotten a good look at the creature, but he _hears it snarl again_.

 

He can’t help it this time, he lets out a low, grumbling growl in response. He’s already broken the table, nearly lodged it into those pipes, and he can feel the muscles in his arms contorting.

 

John breathes heavily, clenching his jaw, until he can’t, and the lengthening teeth and bones forces them open. He throws his head back, letting out a howl.


	6. Chapter 6

Jim blinks awake, shivering from the drop in temperature despite the coat draped over him. He sees Mycroft snoozing as well a few feet away, in a chair, and the mad doctor has run off somewhere to finish his tests. Presumably.

 

The air is damp - perks of being in a basement, he supposes - it only contributes to the cold. Then he hears the clanging of something heavy against metal -  _ thud - THUD -  _ and silence. 

 

The doors to the lift open, and a large, sandy-colored wolf ambles out.

 

Correction a  _ werewolf _ steps out into the lab, and Jim takes a step back, holding the coat in front of him as if that could possibly shield him from view. Behind it, the lift doors are slowly closing on what looks to be the contents of half a mangled cubicle. 

 

Jim turns back to the disoriented looking beast; its eyes are wild and at odds with how intently it stalks towards Jim, who takes step after step back as it approaches. Not good. Jim watches as its lips pull back into a snarl, showing all its teeth. 

 

It looks from Jim to Mycroft who - and God knows how - is still asleep. Then it sniffs, and, as if determining that Jim’s already lost to whatever mystery virus is running through his veins, changes course onto Mycroft.

 

Jim’s blood runs cold. He somehow drops the coat, and it wins him a quick glance from the wolf, before it growls and charges toward Mycroft, teeth on full display. 

 

Morbid curiosity mixed with adrenaline causes Jim to run after it, changing, too, as he does. There’s a split-second stalemate as Jim trips forward into the beast’s path and the werewolf is mere inches from Mycroft, who is now awake and pale as a sheet. It all happens before anyone realizes; Jim maneuvers his right shoulder between the mouth of the beast and Mycroft’s throat - and it bites down.

 

.

 

“John?” Sherlock taps the PA again - there’s no human response. In his other hand is his phone, which has gone to voicemail because John is not picking up. He wraps his scarf around his face as a sad countermeasure, digging around for a gas mask.

 

What he’d seen on screen was impossible - John, stuck alone in the fog-filled room had started to panic. This was expected. Then he heard a  _ growl. _

 

Sherlock could have dismissed the low rumble as something else entirely. But he couldn’t dismiss what he saw next - not unless the lab wasn’t as airtight as he thought, and he’d inhaled the hallucinogen too. But he did not feel that soul-gripping fear he had before. He feels sharp, he sees crystal clear. Everything is even heightened, somehow, tonight. 

 

He thinks he might be losing his mind.

 

John had, from one second to another, disappeared. He’d thrown his head back, and right before Sherlock’s eyes, turned into the very beast that should not have existed.

 

John had  _ turned into _ the hound.

 

He watches, stunned, as the beast -  _ John -  _ runs into the wall; once, twice. Sherlock scrambles for the lock controls, not sure whether he means to open the doors or, what, really? There’s nothing he can do. The beast hurls the table into the door, smashing it open before prying his way through.

 

It’s all Sherlock can do not to run after it - he has to see it with his own eyes this time - he has to know.

 

The lab is trashed and empty when he makes it in, empty of the fog, too. Sherlock steps gingerly around, inspecting the damage. He follows the trail of wreckage to the lift - John must have gone down to the basement. Sherlock marvels at the odd escape route, and wonders at John’s state of mind. (He can deal with his own, later.)

 

Wary of running head-on into the- into  _ John _ unprepared, Sherlock opts to take the back elevator, hoping to catch him on the same floor, but not necessarily face to face. He watches the numbers drop, and stop at the lowest level basement, then darts off to follow.

 

He’s brimming with anxious energy by the time the doors open, and he can hear growls, a crash - it’s not alone, they’re not alone.

 

Then he hears a gunshot.

 

Sherlock’s ears ring as he steps out from behind some equipment, a boiler of some kind - and sees his brother.

 

It’s like something out of a weird dream.

 

“Captain Watson!” 

 

Mycroft’s hair is a mess, and he’s in his shirtsleeves with his waistcoat, and that stupid pocketwatch he wears everywhere. In his hand is a just-fired gun.

 

It’s perfectly nonsensical. Circus music could start playing any moment, and Sherlock’s not sure whether he’d question it.

 

And before Mycroft, there are two wolves. 

 

_ No, use logic _ , he reprimands himself. He’d slap his hands against his head, were he not trying to draw attention to himself.  _ Deduce - deduce  _ **_what?_ **

 

The sandy colored wolf shakes all over, as if stepping out of the water, until it’s a shiver. He shivers all the way back in the form of a man, and then stands at attention before the older Holmes despite his bareness.

 

“Sir, I wish I could explain what happened, but I’m not sure I know myself,” John reports bitterly. 

 

The other, darker wolf hacks, as if trying to cough up a hairball. 

 

“This is insane!” Sherlock blurts out, in disbelief. They turn around, stunned speechless at his arrival. He wants to laugh. He’s trying really hard not to. 

 

“Sherlock! Are you alright?” John asks. Oh, stupid, good-hearted John. Sherlock feels a twinge of guilt, and shoves it down. 

 

“How-”

 

Mycroft’s face crumples, and he sits down heavily, turning to the other wolf.

 

“Well, at least now we know who turned you,” he says wryly. The other wolf, to Sherlock’s surprise, turns too - and it’s a man he recognizes.

 

“Moriarty?!” Sherlock says, taking a step toward them. He knows now, that he is going  _ mad _ . His brother wouldn’t do this, wouldn’t alter Sherlock’s life with such machinations. 

 

Moriarty waves carelessly, and throws him a wicked smile over his shoulder, before draping his brother’s coat over his shoulders. He hops up to take a seat on the lab table.

 

“I’m actually feeling much better,” he says, tone revelatory. Mycroft quirks an eyebrow at that. 

 

“Theory one, then?” he asks. Jim shrugs. 

 

John on the other hand looks quite pained.

 

“Sir, could you please explain what’s going on?”

 

“Yes,  _ Mycroft _ , oh dear brother of mine,” Sherlock grits out. Betrayal cuts deep into him, making him forget his earlier transgressions, what with locking John in a lab and all. “What is this?”

 

“Dr. Watson, as you must have noticed, is a werewolf,” Mycroft says. Then he murmurs, “He must have scratched Moriarty when he was abducted a few weeks ago.”

 

Jim is coyly examining his own nails, but Sherlock isn’t so concerned with him right now. His eyes are on John, and he feels - not a dream, no, he feels like he is waking up to a cold reality.

 

“Mycroft knew?” Sherlock asks. John opens his mouth, but he has no words. Sherlock’s expression darkens. Moriarty, who’s completely escaped Sherlock’s notice, sits back and watches with some amusement. “No, of course he knew. He probably set this up, didn’t he? Junkie little brother needs a friend?”

 

He turns his merciless look on Mycroft.

 

“And I see Moriarty was your doing as well,” Sherlock says, his throat tight and voice strained. He has other questions, but they’re not important. 

 

Mycroft has the decency to not object. He sits, looking contrite, but holds his tongue. 

 

Sherlock, on the other hand, is frustrated to the point of tears. I can’t decide whether to yell at his brother or run, and his friend - who he  _ thought _ was his friend - 

 

“You’re all in on this,” Sherlock says with a laugh. 

 

“Sherlock,” John says, guilt coloring his tone.

 

Sherlock takes a step back, head swimming, and Mycroft reaches for him as if sensing his distress before Sherlock is even aware of what it means. The last time he felt so lost - well.

 

Sherlock jerks his arm away from Mycroft’s reach.

 

“Stay away from me,” he hisses.

 

“Sherlock,” Mycroft says, frantically calm, “you are my brother, and I care for you. That is the only reason-”

 

“You! Care?” Sherlock gives him a once over before heading for the lift. “You’re not my brother.”

 

He doesn’t see Mycroft flinch at that.

 

From far away, the clanging of bells calls to him. Such a jarring sound that it should sound dissonant and displeasing to the ear, but they echo in a way that draws Sherlock in. 

 

“Do you hear that?” Sherlock finds himself saying, to no one in particular. 

 

“Is that another alarm?” John asks, shrinking from the horrible noise. 

 

“Sherlock, no!” Mycroft says, voice firm. Somehow, Mycroft’s forbidding him to do so breaks him out of his stupor. Well he  _ has _ to now, now that this is just another one of- of- whatever Mycroft’s hidden from him. “Stay inside! All of you, stay indoors!”

 

Somehow, he’s made his way into the lift. He watches the doors close on his brother’s frustrated face.

 

.

 

“We have to stop him,” Mycroft says, exhausted. John’s already on his way, shifting mid-stride, and Jim hops down from the table to stand by Mycroft.

 

“Well aren’t you just a lying liar,” he says, in no hurry to chase after Sherlock. Mycroft glares at him, and he returns it with a sunny smile.

 

.

 

Sherlock seemed to only jerk back to consciousness when hands closed around his arms, pulling him back. Where had he come, now that he was surrounded by cold and fog?

 

Oh, that’s right, they’d gone on the moors, to-

 

...to prove there was no hound.

 

That creature staring back at him, with antlers that spread as wide as Sherlock was tall - that was no hound.

 

But the two creatures flanking himself, snarling at the slowly oncoming party - it starts to coming back to him now. John, his friend, turned to wolf right before his eyes, He has it on  _ video. _ And Moriarty, who he had thought an admirable foe - all his brother’s doing.

 

Sherlock shakes the hands off him and turns to glare at Mycroft.

 

“This, is this your doing too?” he asks, gesturing at the strange woman riding the vicious looking hybrid of a stag. Mycroft looks ashen pale, and if Sherlock had any heart for his brother he’d bite his tongue. 

 

“No, don’t answer that,” Sherlock says bitterly. “Whatever next out of your mouth must be a lie, anyway.”

 

Mycroft looks at if he’s just been struck, and the strange woman, with her dark wild hair and eerie-bright eyes laughs. It sounds like shards of glass grinding beside his ears.

 

She extends her arms, holding her hand outstretched to Sherlock.

 

“Come to me,” she says, frosted with the frigid wind.

 

The hairs on the back of his neck, the back of his arms, stand alert. Something hums in the air, and Sherlock remembers to clanging of bells. 

 

_ The Hunt _ . His eyes narrow.

 

“Yes,” she says, “We’ve come for you.”

 

His brows furrow now; answers freely given - how unusual. Sherlock wasn’t one for fairy tales, but his brother had a whole shelf of them, and on occasion he would browse. The Hunt meant tragedy and ruin at worst, and at best, death to those who witnessed it.

 

“You’ve come for my soul?” Sherlock asks, with a bitter laugh. What an utterly irrational end. Impossible. 

 

Mycroft tries to step in front of him, to pull him back, but Sherlock shoulders him away. He won’t look at him; the betrayal still stings.

 

She reaches her hand out again, and Sherlock finds it hard to look at. Instead he studies her companions, each with inhumanly beautiful faces that shimmer to reveal, in instances, the grotesque skulls and beaks and eyes beneath them. 

 

“Come,” she commands, and Sherlock takes a step forward.

 

Behind him, Mycroft sighs that short little sigh when he is  _ annoyed _ at his brother’s messes. 

 

“Sherlock, stop it this instant,” he demands, as if Sherlock were barging into the good detective’s crime scene for the first time, and not walking toward his death. That makes him whirl around in anger.

 

“Have some sense,” Mycroft snaps, before Sherlock can make his protests.

 

“Come, boy, and I’ll make you a Lord,” she says. “What care you of the other three’s fates? They’ve already forsaken you, haven’t they?”

 

“Don’t go, Sherlock,” Mycroft says, weary. “She can’t make you do anything.”

 

Sherlock stares at her face. He hates the smile on it. She would be beautiful without it. 

 

“Can’t I? I don’t need to. It’s  _ all. So. boring. _ Here in the mortal world, isn’t it?” she says, voice lowering to a whisper but still carried to his ear by the wind.

 

Sherlock sways like a reed then; she’s right. What did he have left here? Oh but the world of faerie, of which he knew so little...

 

“Come,” she says again, hand outstretched.

 

Sherlock takes another step, and hesitates, staring at the hand. 

 

“I know your name,” Mycroft tells her. She smiles, unbothered.

 

“I could command you to leave,” Mycroft says, and she then she frowns.

 

“Knight of the Seelie Court, Champion of the Sun Queen,” he continues, and her expression turns hard as he lists her epithets. He holds up his iron pocketwatch. “I have your name. It was inscribed here, by a watchmaker whose son you took.”

 

She gives the trinket a curious look, as does Sherlock. 

 

Mycroft dons an imperious look. 

 

“I could name you now, and,” he eyes John Watson and Moriarty, shifted, “leave you to the wolves.”

 

“Or you could leave my brother, leave with your name and your oath intact,” Mycroft says. “Let him come to you if he so wishes, on his own.”

 

"You're to keep your end then, too, keep my name, and keep him from harm," she says.

 

Sherlock gives Mycroft a bewildered look at that, immediately snapped out of his fuzzy-headed state. Find her, on his own? He wanted to ask, but his brother’s expression warned him not to. 

 

She stares, quietly contemplative. Then she turns to Sherlock with that sickly smile.

 

“There is and island north of here. Go, if you ever with to find me, and circle the tree thrice. I will come,” she says. And then she is gone.

 


	7. Chapter 7

“The Sun Queen’s champion,” Mycroft says. “Pawned something she couldn’t afford to buy back.”

 

“Oh, speak English, Mycroft,” Sherlock snaps.

 

Mycroft opens his mouth - then hesitates.

 

.

 

William Sherlock Scott Holmes is a sickly baby.

 

Mycroft remembers the tiny little thing crying nonstop, until he was too weak to cry at all.

 

He remembers Mummy sitting in her rocking chair, a gift from her sisters, hair matted by the chilling winds as she’d forgotten to close the window.

 

“Mummy!” Mycroft remembers struggling to close the glass panes, before catching his mother’s vacant eyes in the reflection. The suckling baby is still in her arms, but quiet now, and not quite the same. 

 

Mycroft reaches out, fingers trembling, afraid to touch.

 

The baby’s hair is much darker, curling in a way it hadn’t before. Its cheeks are plump and rosy, where before its complexion was sallow. 

 

The sound of hooves draws Mycroft’s attention.

 

He turns to see a woman with a dark, wild mane - similar to the baby. She sits atop a silver horse, a little wicker basket in hand - just big enough for a baby.

 

“What did you do to my brother?” Mycroft asks. “Who are you?”

 

She smiles, and the winds whip into his face. 

 

“Just the wind,” she says, “bringing change as all forces of nature do.”

 

“Your brother has already passed,” she continues, confirming his fears. Mycroft’s tiny heart pounds violently in his chest.

 

“Take care of my darling, won’t you?” she asks sweetly.

 

Mycroft picks the changeling up, ripping him from Mummy’s arms. 

 

“Take him back,” Mycroft demands. “He’s not my brother.”

 

“What does it matter?” It’s not mocking this time, she’s genuinely curious.

 

“He’s not my brother,” Mycroft insists.

 

“He’ll return to me,” the woman says. “Eventually.”

 

Mycroft’s eyes narrow. She doesn’t want to part with the baby either.

 

“He’ll get bored of you mortals soon enough, and then he’ll come back. He’ll look for me,” she says.

 

“Who are you trying to convince?” Mycroft asks.

 

She looks at him, eyes hard this time.

 

“He will get bored. He will come back to me.”

 

Mycroft looks down at the child, who yawns minutely, and turns to snuggle toward his chest, seeking warmth, as his brother did once.

 

“I don’t think so,” he marvels quietly.

 

“What?”

 

Mycroft looks at her, pausing on the basket gripped in her hand, before he answers.

 

“I think he’ll quite like it here,” Mycroft says. He balls his hand into a fist. 

 

“You can’t take him-” She’s not listening. “I’ll make you a wager-” that catches her attention- “you can’t take him, he has to go freely, and take your hand. Until then, he’s mine. And if you don’t agree, I’ll- I’ll let harm befall him, and you won’t find him anyway.”

 

She looks at him coldly, then nods once, before the wind sweeps her away.

 

.

 

Mycroft turns the watch, for once not attached to his waistcoat by the chain, over and over in his hand.

 

“Each court has a Queen, and each Queen has a Champion,” Mycroft explains. “The Seelie and Unseelie, Sun and Shadow, useless descriptors really, just white and black on a chessboard. But the Seelie Queen’s Champion, her personal Knight, took a lover the Queen had no intention of giving.”

 

Sherlock’s mouth is pinched into a line.

 

“And you mean to have us believe they had a child she needed to hide, and that child is me?” Sherlock says, bitter. 

 

“We always knew boredom would draw you away, just not in the way you thought,” Mycroft says softly. 

 

“And do you think that made me happy? That you’ve given me a better life keeping me in the dark?”

 

Mycroft grasps for words of consolation but find none that don’t feel empty. Or selfish. He’d grown to think of Sherlock as a brother, as much as blood. 

 

Sherlock snatches the watch out of his hands - or tries - reeling back in surprise when it burns.

 

“Give me that,” he snaps, reaching for it again. He’d endure the burn, for the secrets it held.

 

Mycroft pockets it angling away and staying his brother’s hand.

 

“It won’t do you any good, brother mine,” he says carefully, searching his brother’s eyes.

 

Sherlock pulls his hands back and glares. 

 

“You’re no brother of mine,” he says, voice low. It cuts deep, and it’s meant to. “And I’m going to see her whether you like it or not. You can’t stop me. And she can’t take me if I don’t touch her.”

 

“You have to know it’s a trick,” Mycroft exclaims, he can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it. A high tide, a stray wave buoyed by the wind, and Sherlock’d have to reach his hand out to steady his footing. That was enough, after having crossed the channel to the little island above.

 

“Not any better or worse than yours,” Sherlock growls. Dr. Watson keeps his eyes lowered, and all this time Sherlock hasn’t looked at him. But he does now, as he turns to leave.

 

“John,” he says sharply. “Are you coming?”

 

And just like that, he’s at his heels.

 

Mycroft watches him go, helpless for a moment, before he remembers he has Moriarty - Moriarty who had distracted Sherlock once, and now, fully turned perhaps could again. If he wanted secrets, Mycroft could dole them out forever.

 

He turns, but Jim, too, is gone.

 

.

 

Jim takes in a deep, long breath now that he’s a ways down the road. He wonders how long before Mycroft sent his men on him. He wonders whether they’re still able to catch him. 

 

Running into John Watson had turned out well after all.

 

He hums a bit, feeling quite good about the turn of events, and retrieves his bounty from his pocket.

 

A pocketwatch, wrought of heavy iron, with a complicated design on the front and the back.

 

He snaps it open, wondering what name could possibly be inscribed inside, and frowns. There’s nothing. It’s not even a watch, it’s a compass, but it must be broken, because the arrow points East.


End file.
